Red to Brown
by OveliaGirlHaditRight
Summary: I wrote this for RiKai Week. This was supposed to be post-KHIII Riku in Shibuya still hung-up on Kairi and needing to get needing to get over that (since SoKai are a pair), which he does, but it ended up a little weird with some SoRiku in it, too (that he also gets over) and a little Riku/Shiki and Neku/Shiki. Also, beware of TWEWY spoilers if you haven't played/finished that game.


**Red to Brown**

"Riku, why do you think Sora would be here?" Shiki asked kindly but uncertainly, as she cocked her head to the side and met his gaze with a concerned one of her own from behind her glasses. Right now, Riku, Neku, and her were at some burger place called "Sunshine", as Shiki and Neku tried to give him the lowdown.

When Riku had first come to Shibuya, Shiki had been the first person he'd seen—that he thought was kind of fitting, because he'd always liked her—and while he hadn't recognized her at first (because she somehow moreso resembled Xion than Kairi now), he'd heard her talking and recognized her voice and seen her lugging around her Mr. Mew.

And then… then the things that Riku hadn't allowed himself to feel at the Keyblade War hit him at full force, and he'd dropped himself at Shiki's feet and _begged_ her to help him get into the Game to find Sora.

Then, Shiki had turned towards her orange-haired friend beside her in an embarrassed and panicked way—as she'd moved her hands this way and that—and had asked him, "What should we do, Neku?"

And Neku—moving a strand of hair from out of his eyes—had just muttered, "Sunshine. Now," and had helped Shiki get Riku to his feet. And as soon as Shiki had touched Riku (perhaps he was touch starved and had needed that comfort there?), Riku was very much himself again. And was that way right now, as they discussed things over food.

"A sorcerer- a sorcerer that I know said he would be here," Riku answered, as he tried something called "French fries" for the first time in his life; and they were actually so good, he thought he might have died and gone to heaven. If only he had... it would certainly make his job of finding Sora easier that way. "And I guess I just had faith in that, that's all."

"Riku," Neku whispered darkly, as he hid his eyes beneath his bangs and seemed to be wanting to say even more than he was. "You know that you have to be dead to play the Reapers' Game, right? —err, for the most part—so are you saying that-"

"...Yeah. Sora's dead. And you're probably not going to believe any of this... but we were in a war and we _all_died. But K-K... Kairi—Sora's girlfriend, that is—kept him tethered to life and Sora then... somehow rewrote time to bring us all back. But the cost for that was his own life. And he would've died from what he already did there, eventually… but our number one enemy _had_ to put the final nail in the coffin by killing Kairi and making Sora use the power one more time to rescue her. Once he brought her back to our Islands... he vanished."

Shiki was bawling her eyes out at this news. Tears streamed down her eyes, as she covered her mouth and made a choking. And Neku just looked like he wanted to hit something—as he muttered something about this "being like that time again"—which Riku couldn't blame him for. Once he'd made sure that Kairi was okay after losing Sora, he had punched every wall that he could find.

"That's not- that's not fair!" Shiki exclaimed, standing up and throwing her hands onto the table—apparently she didn't mind making a scene at all anymore if it was for Sora's sake, and that made Riku like her all the more... but was Riku imagining it, or had Joshua just come into the restaurant for a second and pressed one button on his phone before leaving? —"I mean, _life_ isn't fair. Those of us who have played the Reapers' Game know that most of all. Neku didn't deserve to be murdered twice... Beat's family didn't need to insult him, making him then storm out and Rhyme have to come follow him just as a car was careening towards her... that though Beat tried to stop, couldn't do so and it killed them both. Joshua shouldn't have had the RG treat him so badly, that he didn't want to be a part of it anymore. And my own really big misunderstanding with Eri was dumb, and it led to me going outside without my wits about me and falling and getting a concussion and waking up in the UG. And Sora was a really sweet guy who helped us all and deserved so much better than we got. So what can we do for you guys, Riku?

Riku swallowed against a lump in his throat with everything that Shiki had just told him. He'd assumed his friends who had played the Reapers' Game lives must have been bad, if they'd died so young to be in it to begin with. But he hadn't thought they were like _this_. It reminded Riku of before his adventures had started, when he had thought that the worst thing in his own life that could surely hit him was an early death.

And while since then, Riku, Sora, Kairi, the King, Naminé, Donald, Goofy, Roxas, Xion, Axel, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus had definitely gone through even weirder horrible things than all of this, it didn't lessen any of the sympathy that Riku felt for Shiki and her friends here. Instead, he only felt empathy for them.

"I have… a strange request," Riku said to Shiki and Neku, after he'd gone over to Shiki and run a soothing hand down her back and helped her back into her seat—Neku's eyebrows had risen into his hairline as Riku did this, but he didn't care. Shiki had seemed like she'd been having a panic attack for Sora's sake and Riku wanted to help her—"Master Yen Sid was wrong before, but maybe he'll be right about this one thing: he said that there are alternate versions of Shibuya—maybe of all the worlds—that at least one person here can get to? Do you think you can find this person and get them to take me to one? If Sora isn't in this Shibuya, maybe he's in one of the other ones."

Neku and Shiki shared a look here and soon began talking to each other in hushed whispers. Riku tried hard not to eavesdrop on them, since that was rude, and instead took quite a few swigs of the coke that he'd gotten with his burger and fries… but he thought he heard them debating which person they should ask: Joshua or a "Mr. H." Shiki was leaning towards Joshua, since Riku at least knew him. But Neku said something that Riku couldn't decipher, and then something about how Josh apparently _could_ interdimensional leap, but couldn't exactly control it so it would probably be best if they asked Mr. H.

"Except that no one knows where Mr. H. is right now, Neku. He became a fallen angel after all he did for us in the First Game. You know that, of course. But he may have earned his title again after he brought Shibuya back from being Erased. So he may be contending with the Angels right now… or he may be in the UG, or somewhere in RG Shibuya. Since we at least know Joshua's in the UG in the Room of Reckoning, and was even just here and changed our Frequencies so _we're_ in the UG now, I feel like I should go look for him there and go get his advice. So I'm going to do that. The less time we waste right now—when time if of the essence—the better!"

And not allowing another word in edgewise from either of the boys, Shiki took off to do just that. And Riku couldn't help smirking as she did so, as this attitude of hers reminded him quite a bit of Kairi.

As Shiki went, Neku watched Shiki's retreating form anxiously—and Riku guessed it maybe had something to do with Joshua, since he himself knew how pushy and dangerous feeling that boy seemed to be with all of his power. But Neku seemed to think this even moreso than Riku did, if the way he'd reacted to Joshua's name being said a few times today was any indication—but finally seeming to decide that she was going to be okay, Neku leaned back into his seat and mumbled, "Fine. If she's right and the Josh thing works out, that's great. And I guess it's better than me going to see him. I'm still pissed off that he didn't seem to care at all when Coco killed me recently. But I don't want to talk about him… Riku, you tell me about this Kairi girl and why you like her."

To say Riku was taken aback by this sudden line of questioning would have been a massive understatement. And he was shocked that Neku was bringing it up at _all_, since he didn't seem to be the type who liked to pry into other people's lives or have them look too deeply into his. But then again, Riku saw a psychology book of Neku's opened up on their table—was he going to school for that now?—so maybe that was the answer to why the boy was now doing something that Riku would have assumed was out of character for him.

"I'll- I'll tell you!" Riku stammered hastily—and surprisingly loudly—before he could take it back. "But only because I feel like my not talking about Kairi, and lying about some things, is keeping me from being able to find Sora.

"Where do I even start? Kairi came to our world from another one—and in that way, she was the first clue to Sora and I that there was something bigger and greater out there—so of course I had to like her for that: this girl who wasn't just the promise of an adventure, but perhaps the embodiment of it. And over time—as I grew closer and closer to her and her kind heart—my feelings grew, so much so that I really wanted to tell her I liked her when she was fourteen and I was fifteen… but didn't, because I knew if given the choice, she and Sora would probably be together.

"So jealousy grew in my heart, and I started doing bad things. Like, world ending kind of things and I didn't even care. And because of my actions—literally throwing our Island home away, so we could get onto seeing other worlds already—Kairi lost her heart, and I was _desperate_ to get it back, so I became even more of a monster. I would've killed this puppet that had been animated if I could give its heart to Kairi… I sided with an evil fairy who I knew wanted to take over the worlds, just because she promised she'd help me with Kairi. And I even tried to kill Sora as he fought me…

"I fell into a trap where I became possessed, because of my stupidity and lust for power and desire to hear how great I was—and oddly enough, it was only then that I started coming back into myself—Kairi awoke because of a self-sacrificing move of Sora's. And the man who had taken me over, Xehanort, tried to hurt her and I was able to fight him back just long enough that she could run away… and then I started fighting back in general.

"Alongside Sora, I did the first really good thing on my journey—I locked myself, because I had to for it to work, behind the Door to Darkness, that would have continued spilling more evil out into the world if it had remained open and I was resigned to my fate there… but then I got a second chance to fight the darkness, and be who I was again, by taking on a place called 'Castle Oblivion.' And there, I was ashamed of the things I had done to Sora and Kairi. And I did hate my actions towards Kairi, too, because if I had succeeded and revived her… she would've hated the things I did to accomplish it.

"So while I desperately wanted to see my friends again and make amends… for about a year, I told myself I had no right to that… even if a guise of Kairi _is_ who told me I could use the light and darkness back-to-back… and even if I _did_ at least try and keep an eye on her for a while, and ran into her again while she cried and begged me to stay—forgiving me for all I'd done and breaking me of my desire to leave ever again.

"I know… I know she'd been a little afraid of me when I started to change, right before I destroyed our Islands, and who could blame her? So that massive leap of faith she made for me when she came back into my life meant so much… maybe- maybe that's why when I passed out in the Castle That Never Was, it was with her name on my lips.

"And then when we got home from the Castle That Never Was, we had some months together like we used to, and it was great… I haven't seen her as much lately, because I've been busy on adventures with Sora and had him on my mind some lately—but even then, Kairi isn't too far behind. My Data-self wanted to make sure to tell Data Sora about hurt that Kairi's experienced, and when I met someone who had never once had anyone look past their appearance to see who they were, I thought of how lucky I was that Kairi had done that for me. And… my greatest failure is that in this Keyblade War, I let other responsibilities go to my head and I didn't protect her—instead leaving her with a novice—which then led to everything else. And maybe- maybe I'm thinking if I bring Kairi's Sora back to her, she might finally give me a chance.""

Neku was quiet for a long moment, as he let all of this sink in—and Riku was glad that he hadn't interrupted him with too many questions, like "What's a Data self?", because some of this stuff was hard to explain, okay?—but finally, after removing earbuds from his ears and giving Riku his full and undivided attention, Neku spoke, "What I think is this, Riku: While I don't want to tell you to give up on the romance you feel for this girl who seems to make your life worth it—believe me, I get it—and I'm only taking your word on the Sora and Kairi relationship here… Maybe you're wrong and being too self-conscious and Sora and Kairi really aren't together, and Kairi likes _you_. I don't know…

"The way you just talked about Kairi… I think you're mostly over her, even if don't realize it. The more you got into your story… the less you had to tell about her, and it even seems you're really more about Sora now. I'm not saying you still don't love her as a friend or sister—and I know how hard it is to let go of a safety crutch—but I think if you do… and _let_ yourself believe that you're not so selfish anymore, as to be looking for Sora just to impress Kairi—or even just to have Sora for yourself-you'll find him."

And deep down, Neku was right… and Riku knew that he was, and had perhaps even sensed so for a long time.

Because just as Neku got done telling him all of this, a man with short brown hair, glasses, a goatee, and a cup of beans in his hand appeared out of the ether and told Riku that while Sora wasn't in RG or UG Shibuya, he was in High Plane Shibuya and could take him there.


End file.
